Another Q&A 2

This is a continuation of the conversation on the first Q&A. In this thread, the questioner was mixing dualism with advaita. This is a common error, resulting from confusing the experience or the description of the experience of Self Realization with Vedanta. Vedanta is oneness or Unity, part of a later stage where all is recognized to be That, consciousness, pure Being.

Consciousness both globally and at every point is the structure of Atman or consciousness. By your description (awakening), the point has become aware of itself globally. When it becomes that more deeply, it becomes aware of the point value within itself and then that everything is that.

Awakening is the dissolution of identification with the me-sense. The point has nothing to do with individuality. It is a point of focus within wholeness and never exists as a distinct entity. A focal point is required for That to express itself. When it sleeps, that expression ceases to exist but the point continues.

The words are of course vehicles for the mind to communicate something. They have no value in themselves. The point is to communicate something of how that awareness comes to awaken to itself and why it appears as apparent individuals but is never actually divided. I’m not describing anything external. From that perspective, there is no inside and outside. It is all self-contained.

This is also the perspective after the perceiver and perceived have been recognized to be one and the same, leaving only perceiving, the devata. This is one way to describe the mechanics of that. There is no longer a distinct Maker either. To use the next statement in the sequence, Thou art That.

I’d also note the other statement All this is That. This is quite distinct from seeing all of this as an illusion.

Illusory world means it’s still seen as separate. This is dwaita or duality.

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I mean that awareness has to focus for anything to happen. You can see that in your own life. But more deeply, creation arises when consciousness “takes a direction” to use Vedic phrasing.

Phrased another way, everything arises in self-aware consciousness. Self-awareness requires directed attention. If there is no direction, awareness ceases to be aware and settles into alertness without content.

Awareness is awake to itself, yes. See the above. But it’s not awake to itself everywhere in the details yet. Otherwise all beings would know themselves that way as well.

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In oneness there is nothing but awareness. Everything comes from awareness, stays in awareness and falls back into awareness. By everything I mean absolutely everything. There is nothing else. Mind is not separate from awareness but rather is an expression of it. Space and time are effects of awareness aware of itself.

If you see anything separate from that, that is more than one. All this is not That then.

I am playing with the language to bring out the nuances. There are various ways to put it. We could describe alertness which becomes self-aware as awareness, whose self-interactions create objects and their perception. We could explore this process in much more detail.

If awareness does not perceive objects, what does? If it is something else, then it is not non-dual. True non-duality is totally inclusive.

Attention is the director of attention. Or you could say awareness is. The idea there is human awareness and some kind of non-dual awareness as distinct things is illusory. There is awareness that is caught in its objects of perception or awareness that sees itself as distinct from objects but these are both incomplete recognitions.

I don’t disagree that awareness is inherently always aware. But do not some people experience it being caught locally? Or see the world and awareness as 2 separate things? That experience exists so obviously awareness is not totally aware in every circumstance. That is the part that is waking up to itself.